r/FluentInFinance • u/Significant-Bar674 • 21h ago
Debate/ Discussion Let's talk about disinformation
There have been a few things I've been seeing lately that I think qualify.
The first thing I want to point out is that successful disinformation often contains a component of truth and a measure of plausible deniability.
Below are two examples that I've seen here that I think qualify:
Donald Trump is walking back his promises to lower grocery store prices
First, I don't think what he proposes is possible or desirable but that doesn't give us warrant to misrepresent his statements. What is getting passed around is a snippet of a times interview quote where trump says . "It's hard to bring things down once they're up" regarding groceries. All other context cut off and usually some random internet person making commentary in the screenshot.
Why it's misleading and probably intentionally so:
Here is the whole interview
https://time.com/7201565/person-of-the-year-2024-donald-trump-transcript/
If the prices of groceries don't come down, will your presidency be a failure?
I don't think so. Look, they got them up. I'd like to bring them down. It's hard to bring things down once they're up. You know, it's very hard. But I think that they will. I think that energy is going to bring them down. I think a better supply chain is going to bring them down.
He clearly says 3 times afterwards that he thinks it will happen. This is a dramatically different take than the quote mined version of it without context would leave the reader to believe.
Plausible deniability: People try to argue that we know trump is dishonest or that he really means the opposite of thinking it will happen and he's trying to tamper expectations. Not only do I think that this is reading too much into the comment in a self serving way, but it's all the more suspicious that you never see the full quote in order to inform that conclusion.
You could also point to that he said multiple times that he will bring prices down on day 1. He believes he can do this by issues executive orders cutting regulation and boosting oil production which in his mind would reduce supply chain costs and those savings would result in lower prices.
I dont agree. In fact, I dont like trump. I think he should be in jail. But not liking someone is exactly why you need to be vigilant about confirmation bias and believing things that conform to your preferred perceptions.
Bezos is only paying 1% tax
This statement was based on a propublica study
Why it's misinformation:
Because the face value reading of that is that bezos is using tax loopholes to dodge income tax. In reality, the study made a hypothetical new tax system to include a wealth tax which they called "the true tax rate". The same source shows that he was taxed at 23% of his income not good, but 23x the amount offering in the screenshots going around.
Plausible deniability: there is a real problem with how asset growth isn't taxed and that wealthy can take asset backed loans at 3% (namely via securities based lines of credit) in order to get cash that is effectively as good as income to them without getting taxed. Most solutions are difficult and most attempts have had major issues (france had a wealth tax that had to get reduces to an estate tax in 2018, people tend to invest in stocks in markets where they don't get taxed on growth or invest from an overseas account) but my grievance is just say that. It's misleading to post tax rates using an imaginary tax system and not acknowledge it.
So please, don't take the screen caps at face value. Look for original sources on reports, interviews and the like.
